Friday, November 28, 2008

ON THE 28TH DAY OF THE 62 DAYS OF THE AMERICAN COMMERCIAL WINTERTIME FESTIVAL

On the 28th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my true love gave to me – 28 coupons good only on Black Friday.


I prefer to call the December holiday period The American Commercial Wintertime Festival, since that name more accurately describing it than the old-fashioned, outdated term “Christmas.”


Very little Christian remains in the December holiday these days. There are, true, the old carols, blared at full volume in Mall muzak and endlessly repeated on FM stations starting on 1 November. However, most of the holiday consists of American materialistic commercialism interwoven with Roman Saturnalian paganism and neo-Germanic paganism.


The holiday wastes millions of kilowatts on electrical decorations. People who normally display good taste and cultured refinement of character suddenly decorate their front yards with plastic elves, inflatable snowmen, and animated fat men in red clothes.


I won’t even go near Herr Kringle. I do not know how any well-educated secularist parent can repeat all those silly details to their children with a straight face. People who turn their noses up at mere mention of virgin birth, angelic choirs, and a moving star happily spout on about workshops in the North Pole, a one-night toy distribution to millions of children, and flying Laplandish undulates.


Those who want a nice quiet real Christmas that emphasizes the spiritual qualities must endure the advertising. On Wednesday before Thanksgiving, TV ads displayed such naked desperation that merchants did everything short of getting down on bare, bended knees to beg us to shop. SuperAmericaFirsters among us harangue us with guilt warning that if we cut back on Christmas shopping to emphasize the spiritual qualities of the holiday, we will contribute to an economic depression.


Of all the traditions of the Commercial Wintertime Festival designed to make us more anxious, Black Friday reins at the top. We cannot even get a decent night’s sleep for it: we must get up at 4:00 a.m., all bloated with turkey and stuffing and pie from the feast day before, still bleary-eyed from watching long and tedious football games on TV screens, some Cinerama sized.



RIGHT ASCENSION URGES READERS TO LOBBY FOR THESE SIMPLE CHANGES TO RESTORE CHRISTMAS.


1. Thanksgiving should be moved from Thursday to a Friday. The reason of doing this holiday on the fourth day of the week is lost in nineteenth-century cultural necessity.


2. Christmas should be moved from December 25 to the fourth Sunday of December. Nobody knows conclusively anymore the actual day of Christ’s birth. The scriptural text suggests sometime in Spring. The 25th is actually an old Roman solstice orgy day.


A Christmas on Sunday would put secular holidays on Saturdays and Monday and emphasize the Christian spiritual roots of the holiday.


3. Celebrating the Day of the Kings would further separate the spiritual holiday and the secular celebration.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

IDENTIFYING REAL THREATS TO TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE

News Item culled from the headlines

LDS Church 'grateful' for Proposition 8 support


Preserved from the Deseret News Internet Newsservice
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705260852,00.html
By Carrie A. Moore Deseret News
electronic scrapbook entry for Published: November 5, 2008

Gay marriage is once again banned in California after the nation's most hotly contested citizen referendum ended in victory for Proposition 8 supporters, backed by major fundraising and grass-roots organizing by members of the LDS Church.

Elder L. Whitney Clayton, a member of the church's Presidency of the Seventy who helped lead the church's support for Proposition 8, told reporters during a press conference Wednesday that he doesn't have a monetary total for how much money was donated by Latter-day Saints. He did say it was "considerable and generous" and that church leaders are "grateful for the sacrifice" made by members who participated in the campaign.

He said the church, as an institution, did not contribute directly but did pay for hotel and travel expenses for him and other leaders who participated in the effort.

The California vote was considered too close to call late Tuesday, with word coming Wednesday morning that the referendum to amend the California Constitution — defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman — had won.

The victory for supporters leaves questions for thousands of gay couples who married in the past few months after the California Supreme Court struck down a previous voter referendum on the issue and legalized gay marriage there earlier this year.

Prop 8 supporters maintained that the court's 5-4 ruling did not reflect the will of California voters and would put their children at risk for indoctrination by putting gay marriage on par with traditional marriage.,

In recent weeks, several news organizations have said The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was pivotal in the political fight, bringing in millions in financial backing for Prop 8 and organizing its members as part of a grass-roots campaign by conservatives throughout the state.

© 2008 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved


RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY
for adult readers

Many people regard marriage as a domestic arrangement between two people. Most people probably do not even think of marriage in terms of legal definitions. The real traditional definition of marriage is a covenant between four entities. Repeat Four entities -- not two.

1. The man

2. The woman

In secular societies

3. The culture in which the man and the woman live

In religious societies

3. God, represented by the reverend clergies

And — the group whose interests have become more or less mislaid in the whole recent marriage controversy.

4. Children.

Children, David O McKay once observed, deserve a family and a pure unencumbered birth. That means a father and a mother in a married covenant, and legal documentation. There are sound economic reasons for insisting on this arrangement, for as David Frum recently observed in an editorial:

“The argument over same-sex marriage has become worse than a distraction from the challenge of developing policies to ensure that as many children as possible grow up with both a father and a mother in the home. Over the past 30 years, governments have effectively worked to change attitudes about smoking, seat-belt use and teenage pregnancy. Changing attitudes about unmarried childbirth may prove more difficult. Yet it is a fact that the only way to escape poverty is to work consistently — and that even after welfare reform, low-skilled single parents work less consistently than the main breadwinner in a low-skilled dual-parent household.”

California’s marriages are the least of California’s political problems these days. However, California’s Proposition 8, which defines in the California Constitution that marriage is between one man and one woman, serves a misguided public relations function. The proposition gives the appearance of action and reform when, in fact, it actually does way too little way too late for the cause of marriage.

Homosexual unions have not damaged marriage irrevocably.

Heterosexual unions of the nineteenth and twentieth century damaged marriage as an institution.


The Heterosexuals, after all, introduced polygamist marriage to North America in the 1830s.

Heterosexuals invented la casa grande and la casa bonita, which is a euphemism for describing a household with a husband, a wife, and several mistresses.

Heterosexuals liberalized no-fault divorce laws, making it possible for one man to go through multiple women over the course of a lifetime.

Heterosexuals popularized the concept of contraception, which is to say sexual activity without children.

Heterosexuals defined unions between men and women, especially older men and women, without the consideration or possibility of procreating children as “marriages” when they were actually “domestic companionship arrangements."


THE CALL TO ACTION

We should not blame homosexuals for the appalling state of modern marriage when the heterosexuals did the most damage to the institution.

QUESTIONS AND NOTES IN THE WAKE OF THE ELECTION OF 2008

Questions for George Bush after the Election of 2008:


Did George Bush have any reaction to the crowd that somehow materialized around the White House when Obama won the presidential election? It looked like Munchkinland after the house fell on the witch.


What the heck is George Bush going to do in Crawford Texas for the next 25 years? Any time he thinks about traveling outside the country he runs the risk of being arrested for crime against Humanity, especially in countries influenced by France. Or Russia.



Note to the Republicans in Congress:


Instead of enabling George Bush and his administration, you should have exiled the whole lot of them to Saint Helena when you had the chance to redeem yourselves. Now if the voters have any say in it, the Republicans will be wandering around in the wilderness until 2048 with or without Moses. Probably without. Moses does not impress me as Country Club Set.



Another Note to Republicans:


If you want to win a presidential election, do these three things


1 Do not nominate someone who is certifiable for president no matter what his experience. McCain was held prisoner and tortured for five years. One should not put that sort of emotional baggage in a job that has access to atomic weapons.


2 Take a close look at the hills and don’t nominate someone who is older than them.


3 Select a candidate who will also campaign while running around from place to place making speeches. I do not want to say that McCain’s campaign was the worst I have seen in 40 years of political monitoring, but he could not sell air conditioning in the Amazon.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

History and commentary on presidential election 2008 in Utah

2008 is a Leap year beginning on a Tuesday
Throughout history, a year of political shifts or calms before political storms

1828 D replaces T Jackson defeats President Adams. New era shift

1856 D retains D Buchanan keeps the status quo as apocalypse approaches.

1884 D replaces R Grover Cleveland the only Democrat president between 1861 and 1911. Not a new era, but a shift.

1924 R reelected Calvin Coolidge retains the 1920s Republican status quo as apocalypse approaches.

1952 R replaces D Eisenhower replaces President Truman. Not a new era exactly, but a shift.

1980 R replaces D Reagan defeats President Carter. New era shift.

2008 D replaces R Obama will replace Bush. Hard to tell if this is a lasting shift or a
new era.

In Utah, experts fully expected 75 to 80 percent of Utahns to vote. They did not – the percentage is probably in the high 60 percentile. The weather turned bad on election day, and those who did not like either Obama or McCain probably used lousy weather as an excuse not to decide. Voter turn out in Utah County was also low by the standards of 2008, and the weather was not THAT bad in Utah County either, though the rain came down steadily most of the day.

Speaking of Utah County, the Democrats in Utah County fielded candidates in all the senate and house races. They worked their little hearts out campaigning, and the Utah County Voters voted Republican by wide margins anyway.

Utahns in the Third Congressional District of Utah have elected a new Republican representative amid the Democratic gains in the House of Representatives. Talk about our Utah County Brethren remaining unshakable in their reactionariness. The heathens of Babylon America considered Representative Chris Cannon an utter conservative reactionary. He even lead the unsuccessful fight to impeach Clinton. However, Cannon held a few high profile unpopular views in Utah County, so he received regular primary challenges. This year, the Utah Republicans were earlier this year in a particularly militant mood what with the general popularity of Obama and Hilary and the national rejection of Mitt Romney. Thus in June, they finally dumped Cannon in favor of a new Representative named Jason Chaffetz who, on the poltical tally sheet, seems even more reactionary than Cannon!

Voting habits come from deep inside. In Utah, a Republican candidate has to be bad to the bone before the voters will reject him. Or Her. Take a look at this list of Republican presidential election voting percentages history in Utah.

year GOP Dem

2008 62 32 A black liberal, mind you, does well in Utah! Romney was more popular, but the GOP dutifully voted for McCain

2004 71 26 You’d think a white Catholic military vet would do better in Utah

2000 67 26 You’d think Gore would have been more popular than Obama, but no.

TWO FLUKE ELECTIONS IN UTAH
1996 54 33 Clinton actually became a little more popular before Monica, A strong third party candidate

1992 43 24 Clinton unpopular, Perot actually came in 2nd!


1988 68 31 Bush I did well in Utah before he established the New World Order

1984 74 25 Reagan was an Idol in Utah, Democrats couldn’t give away candy

1980 73 25 Reagan was an Idol in Utah.

1976 62 34 Reagan was more popular, but the GOP dutifully voted Ford

1972 67 26 McGovern couldn’t give away Candy in Utah

Utah did vote for Johnson in 1964, which was a major fluke. The rest of the time, Utah votes Republican (1900- 1928, [Roosevelt-Truman interegnum 1932-48] and since 1952). Our neighbors have been, how shall we say?, less predictable over the long haul of years. Here is the presidential electoral college record.

year Arizona Nevada Colorado New Mexico Montana

1960 Nixon Kennedy Nixon Nixon Nixon

1964 Goldwater Johnson Johnson Johnson Johnson

1992 Bush I Clinton Clinton Clinton Clinton

1996 Clinton Clinton Dole Clinton Dole

2000 Bush II Bush Bush Gore Bush

2004 Bush II Bush Bush Bush Bush

2008 McCain Obama Obama Obama McCain

In the nation, the shifts from Republican candidates to Democratic candidates in the presidential electoral college vote happened in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia. At this stage, it is hard to tell if North Carolina shifted from Republican to Democratic. All the other voting traditions remained solidly in place.

Four USA presidents were born in the 1910s decade. Two presidents were born in 1924. No president was born in the 1930s, Two presidents were born in 1946. Three presidents were born in the 1940s -- if you count SuperVeep Cheney. No president has been born in my birth decade the 1950s. Our president-elect was born in Honolulu in August 1961, the same month that the Russians erected the Berlin Wall. This is the first time a president-elect is younger than I. Time marcheth on.